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United States Patent | 6,163,519 |
Kuroda ,   et al. | December 19, 2000 |
In a method of manufacturing a probe with a minute aperture, the probe is coated with conductive material, a tip of the probe is brought into contact with a conductive substrate and a voltage is applied between the probe and the substrate to remove the coating material at the tip of the probe and form the minute aperture at the tip of the probe. The thus-fabricated probe can be used in a scanning near-field optical microscope for observing an object on the basis of a change in intensity of near-field light and an information recording and/or reproducing apparatus for reproducing information recorded in a record medium by using near-field light.
Inventors: | Kuroda; Ryo (Kawasaki, JP); Shimada; Yasuhiro (Hadano, JP) |
Assignee: | Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Tokyo, JP) |
Appl. No.: | 518104 |
Filed: | March 3, 2000 |
Mar 29, 1996[JP] | 8-103361 |
Current U.S. Class: | 369/126; 250/306 |
Intern'l Class: | G11B 007/00 |
Field of Search: | 369/126,100,112,44.15,13 250/306,307,234 |
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5304795 | Apr., 1994 | Fujihira et al. | 250/234. |
5333495 | Aug., 1994 | Yamaguchi et al. | 250/306. |
5343460 | Aug., 1994 | Miyazaki et al. | 369/126. |
5354985 | Oct., 1994 | Quate | 250/234. |
5581083 | Dec., 1996 | Majumdar et al. | 250/306. |
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Durig, U., et al., "Near-Field Optical-Scanning Microscopy", Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 59, No. 10, pp. 3318-3327 (May 15, 1986). Reddick, R.C., et al., "New Form of Scanning Optical Microscopy", The American Physical Society, Physical Review B, vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 767-770 (Jan. 1, 1989). |